Lisa Alspector

Oscar baiting is the main point of this unintentionally silly drama.

Stodgy storytelling and a hyperbolic score reduce their experiences to melodrama.

Hokey.

An intriguing noir whose conceptual sophistication is partly undermined by naive execution.

Satisfying in small ways.

Rowan Atkinson's recalcitrant TV character is the hub of this 1997 feature that will disappoint fans and nonfans alike.

Never seems to find its tone.

Nat Mauldin and Larry Levin's screenplay, indifferently directed by Betty Thomas, is simply an excuse for tired scatological jokes involving animal characters with the voices of well-known actors.

The tectonic shifts in this camp-horror extravaganza are unsettling.

Cliched narrative, which isn't funny as often as seems intended.

Clunky and obvious.

All of this comedy's jokes are old.

The feature has some lovely effects.

A narrative that tries to juggle thriller elements, tons of pop culture imagery, and way too much philosophical baggage.

Olympia Dukakis and Illeana Douglas come off poorly in silly supporting roles that make Aniston seem to have screen presence by default. Her character's habit of compulsively adjusting her bodice ensures our attention has the proper focus.

The buildup to social criticism in what at first appears to be pointless and partly misogynist exploitation is subtly impressive.

Partly because the seducer's technique is methodical--as a former conquest explains to the naive heroine--the movie's answers are too easy.

Blends extremes of violence and humor to create an irreverent tone that nullifies everything; the plot is so clever it crushes the characterization, making all the action seem perfunctory.

The result is an exploitation movie that seems like it's about something -- though what exactly I couldn't say.

It's all corny and contrived and usually sensitive. The filmmakers even dare to show the effects of illness--a subject frequently glamorized to the point of being insulting--in a love scene of rare honesty.

Whedon and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen") bend over so far backward to make Weaver's and Ryder's roles beefy that they end up mocking the characters' bravura.

Ultimately this is a sharp-focus issue movie, decrying intolerance as it explores the effects of labeling, the complexity of fetishizing, and the differences between business and crime.

A better disaster movie than it is a thriller.

This 1998 romantic comedy mostly bores with its cumbersome exposition and close-ups of trivial objects scattered throughout lackluster montage sequences.

Romantic comedy is set mainly in NYC, where the plight of its ambivalent lovers seems particularly trivial.

The ultimately uncomplicated view of sexual and emotional violence in a family is only tragic, not insightful.

A cute send-up of preadolescent stereotypes.

Becomes blandly idealistic.